Two recent reports to Halifax Council, one on the pros and cons of right turns on red, and another an update on the Vision Zero Framework, show that motorists are like royalty in the city, and vulnerable pedestrians are mostly on their own.
Danny Cavanagh: HRM council must ensure that workers’ rights are respected and that companies abide by the same rules as taxis and that checks and balances are in place to protect the travelling public and workers.
A good–sized crowd gathered this morning for a moving ceremony at the Grand Parade to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the nuclear annihilation of the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.
Halifax Regional Municipality has declared August 6, 2020, as a Day of Peace to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the only use of nuclear bombs on people at the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, August 6 and 9, 1945. Nova Scotia Voice of Women for Peace (NSVOW) and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War Canada (IPPNWC) are celebrating this declaration with a ceremony at the Grand Parade in Halifax, starting at 11:00, which culminates with a moment of silence and bell ringing at noon 75 times.
Martyn Williams writes a letter to city staff and councillors to plea for safer intersections for old people and people who live with disabilities. “This is not an issue where engineers may balance the cost to vulnerable road user lives against the benefit gained to traffic flow. It is a human rights issue that requires urgent action and intervention by leadership through appropriate policy.”
We talk with Tari Ajadi, a member of the NS Policing Policy Working Group, about a proposal by Halifax Councillor Waye Mason to look into moving some tasks currently done by Halifax Regional Police to civilian services.
The report on Cornwallis is a good piece of work, but ironically, when it comes to how we reached this milestone moment, the report erases a long history of resistance to the statue and all that it stands for, much of it led by Mi’kmaw women.
“Several African Nova Scotian HRM employees I spoke with compare their working conditions to the working conditions in the Southern United States of the 1950’s,” writes Raymond Sheppard. “In my humble opinion HRM has been singing the diversity song without learning the dance that goes along with it.”
Peggy Cameron: The Halifax Common’s 240 acres is ~ 20-25% parking lots. There is an obvious opportunity to re-naturalize, re-wild or landscape them to create new park space and a cheap, efficient way to deal with major impacts from climate change. But Mayor Savage and Council have no plans to change this usage. In fact they recently approved plans for a new 8-storey parking garage by the NS Museum of Natural History. That’s despite ~3,000 citizens petitioning against the garage and for protection of the Halifax Common.
The sale of the Bloomfield school site by the city more than anything means the loss of desperately needed affordable housing. A look at what could have been.